4 posts from January 2008

The first major public domain video-sharing project in Japan, by Research Institute of Digital Media and Contents, Keoi University (Keio DMC), in collaboration with Kawasaki City Museum, is now open to public.

The site, "History of Showa, reflected upon Japanese dinner table", is a neat collection from the long-standing animated commercial series by a processed food company Momoya, broadcasted on television between 1953 and 1993.  The main character, a big-nose guy with round glasses, is Norihei Miki, one of the great comedians in Showa era.  Momoya contributed its entire CM video archive, 218 pieces in total, to Kawasaki City Museum to be used for the purpose of study and education.  Half of the collection have already made available on Keio DMC's own video sharing platform "Volume One" since last October on trial basis, and at this time, the team has selected 50 of them that show the historical background of the time it was broadcasted, with explanation of these backgrounds both in Japanese and English.  For foreign visitors, the site has a separate page to explain the food items in subject, as well as some of Japanese-specific CM characters that Norihei inpersonates, such as Sumo wrestler and ninja.

The project is significant, not only because it is the first case of comprehensive collection of TV CM video in Japan, but also because it is open to public for free, for academic purposes.  In Japan, the video copyrights holders has much stronger control than in the U.S., and the debate over the legitimacy of video sharing on the Internet has much harsher tone against free sharing.

The project leader and my long-term friend, Junko Iwabuchi of Keio DMC, says she wants to make it an example of the public domain effort on the net, and let people know that the museum contents can be shared with much ease and low cost through the net.

Please visit:
http://www.documentshowa.jp/

(You need the latest version of Flash Player.  To see more recent ones, scrol all the way down and click the blinking arrow.)

Anyway, the videos are quite fun to watch, and you can see the early days of Japanese animation.  Enjoy!!

Just briefly...

"Mongol", an epic film about Genghis Khan, starring Japan's Tadanobu Asano, is nominated for the Academy Award Foreign Language Film category.

The film's director is Russian, the filming was done in Mongol, and is credited as made by Russia/China/Mongol/Kazakhstan - VERY international film, indeed!!

I don't even know if Oscar presentation will be held or not - hope it does - but anyway, nice to see Tadanobu in a notable position.  This film is very little know in Japan.  I think it is not even distributed there.  Tadanobu never plays in TV dramas (Japanese actors usually plays both movies and dramas) and only plays in indie movies, so is relatively little known among Japanese people outside of film funs.  The only popular appearance is in TV commercials - he is in NTT Docomo (cell phone) and Toyota commercials.

I am not particularly a big fan of him, but I like some of his films.  He is in "Zatoichi" with (Beat) Takeshi Kitano, which I liked, and I also liked "Taste of Tea".  Both are available on Netflix, so you should check it out.  Others - rather dark indie films - are beyond my layman taste. 

Tadanobu is known also as a close buddy with Joe Odagiri among Joe fans.  I hope Joe gets some taste of international work from his buddy/mentor!

My son has egg allergy.  Everytime he sees someone eating eggs, he sadly utters "that looks so good, I wish I could eat it."

His sadness may come to an end, thanks to a group of high-school students in Japan.  The egg development team from Harima Agriculture High School, Hyogo, Japan, succeeded to produce the dream eggs that has a low possibility of causing allergy reaction.  They experimented many different kinds of feeds for the chicken, and found out that the ones with shiso (perilla) and some fish powder produce eggs containing 5 times of alpha-Linolenic acid, a type of unsaturated fatty acid, which suprresses the allergy.

The team made further improvements and have started to sell it with a brand "Harima Dream Tamago (egg)".  The reputation spreaded with word of mouth and last month, a major local department store Hanshin Hyakkaten took it up on the shelf.  The eggs are now flying out of shelf.

I wonder if there is anything like this in the U.S., so my son can have the taste of egg.

Original article:  MSN Sankei 1/12/08 

We were out in Mexico for a few days for New Years Vacation, and came back to find out that we had a blackout in our house.

It turned out that our area was the hardest hit in the area, and as of now, which is supposedly after more than 30 hours after the blackout tarted, the power still is not back on.

We have the backup circuits and UPS and everything, but nothing is of use.  The Net is out, and I cannot do any work done.  I don't have any radio anymore, other than Pandora, and of course it does not work.  I cannot charge the cell phone. 

It is such an irony.  The only way savior is the car.  I can recharge my cell battery, run to our friend's house who has the power to connect to the net.  The car has the heat and light.  As long as the car runs, I am OK.

I have stock up with canned soup and instant ramen, firewood and battery to survive for one more night without power.  Hope it will come back on tomorrow.